Anti-Exploit Measures for Caravan (Can I have it?)

[Hiruke]

Here's a distrubing trend I wasn't aware of: Accepting a Caravan Escort quest only to run to the completion point and gather while others do the work. What, really?

Only eight people at any given time can take part in a Caravan Escort, so when you manage to gather a full party in hopes of doing 1,000 seal runs and you're greeted by a parasite who edges out an unlucky party member, then proceeds to take a seat at the end, no one's particularly happy. As for a way to fix this, there's always the method of creating a "Quest Area" around the actual caravan similar to the red ring you find in instances. If you leave it for too long, you abandon the quest. Simple, I'd think. I wouldn't want it to be made something purely for parties, as I value the pick-up-and-go mentality if it's available.

It might be different if you could just go somewhere else or do something else, but as of now (and more so recently) Caravan's appear to be one of the only ways of getting a decent amount of seals in a group. Here's hoping this issue is at least recognized.

I've long thought this mechanic in caravan (as well as Behest, or any other open world content that is severely limited in terms of participation) was not very well thought out. I don't see any point whatsoever in a bunch of randoms able to "participate" in an open world event if they have the ability to confound the efforts of a full PT that is trying to do said event. This is just going to get more annoying as time goes on and server populations rise.

Caravan and Behest should be treated more like LQs. When you decide to participate, your entire PT is joined. No one outside of your PT should be allowed to "jump in". Problem solved (in terms of leechers and griefers).

Should the "digital rarity"* of Caravan or Behest become a bottleneck, they could always consider having multiple caravans/routes (3 routes might be good?). That way up to 3 caravans could be rolling at the same time, each one going a different path. Behest could do something similar, but since the rewards for that remain very lackluster, I don't see that being problematic to begin with.

*At least, I assume only one group can monopolize a specific caravan at a time. I've never seen more than 8 people try to do it at the same time.

[JakeRoon]

or you could make the caravans not boreing so ppl would not want to afk them....

just sayin...

[Melinia]

or you could make the caravans not boreing so ppl would not want to afk them....

just sayin...

People will want to afk themselves regardless. It has nothing to do with whether Caravan is "boring" or not. Whenever there's an easy abuse, people will exploit it. In FFXI, in the WotG expansion, people discovered that you could get lots of points during Campaign by hanging out at a safe location and spamming bard songs on yourself. So that's what they did - at least up until SE nerfed that particular abuse.

There are always going to be people who attempt to game the system.

[Antipika]

Just reward players for their activity involvement, like Besieged or Campaign on XI... Problem solved

[JakeRoon]

I am just saying if the practice was FUN....ppl would not want to afk through it, becuase it's....you know....fun....

[Arcell]

I am just saying if the practice was FUN....ppl would not want to afk through it, becuase it's....you know....fun....

Again, it's not about fun. It's about getting rewarded for doing nothing. If people can get rewards without doing anything then they will, it has nothing to do with fun.

[Sephrick]

Not to get too off topic but I wish they'd change it so that the exp was given when you talk to the NPC like the deals are. Give us a chance to change classes.

[Felis]

Not to get too off topic but I wish they'd change it so that the exp was given when you talk to the NPC like the deals are. Give us a chance to change classes.

I have not a problem with change the class before the exp reward. You only need to know when it is safe to change the class.

[Hayden]

There is no reason Caravan needs to be limited to 8 people, nor pty members only. It should be an open world event where a higher number of participants can engage in the event. Say 16 or so? Nobody is really doing Caravan for exp, that would be the only real reason to limit it to pty members.

1) more people could participate, difficulty would scale to match number of participants
2) EXP and Seals would be rewarded upon completion
3) Perhaps some sort of "much have engaged in combat" to receive reward? I don't know I'm sure they could balance it out to prevent lazy foalk from mooching. I've been doing caravan for a few days now honestly haven't had much of a problem with this.

My main gripe is really just the limited number of participants. It's kind of annoying having to switch out with people, or just not be able to do it because the main pty is full.

[Airget]

There is no reason Caravan needs to be limited to 8 people, nor pty members only. It should be an open world event where a higher number of participants can engage in the event. Say 16 or so? Nobody is really doing Caravan for exp, that would be the only real reason to limit it to pty members.

1) more people could participate, difficulty would scale to match number of participants
2) EXP and Seals would be rewarded upon completion
3) Perhaps some sort of "much have engaged in combat" to receive reward? I don't know I'm sure they could balance it out to prevent lazy foalk from mooching. I've been doing caravan for a few days now honestly haven't had much of a problem with this.

My main gripe is really just the limited number of participants. It's kind of annoying having to switch out with people, or just not be able to do it because the main pty is full.

The problem is they as far as I know have no content which scales based on the amount of members involved. The coding for caravan is as simple as join event, get reward at end. There's no concept set in place to calculate involvement, check for afkers, or a means to scale it based on the amount involved.

Scaling an event is more then just adding mobs or making them stronger if 8 people fight 50 mobs, that doesn't mean 9 people fighting 60 mobs would be easier or tougher, it has to all be play tested to figure out the best setup for each increase in members.

If scaling events actually existed in this game then the empire invasion event would be a lot tougher then just pwning a bunch of lemmings for the slaughter lol.

The best way they can balance this event is by making it an instance and possibly adding it where you use a leve charge a run. Instead of risking leeches from joining your run it would be set in place like a primal run in which it will notify you that the leve/caravan is starting and everyone who posesses the proper leve will recieve a reward at the end of the caravan run.

Basically the chocobo dealer at the caravan could offer 4 different leves with difference challenges to them and then of course you have to be in a party when initiating the leve and upon starting it the leve/caravan is initiated for all.

Since the caravan itself would start automatically there would be absolutely no way for a leecher to involve themselves since if they attempted to enter a caravan solo then it would start off as a solo caravan run.

But ya, think that's the best way they could tweak it a bit, if they allow more people to do it they have to put a limit on it somehow and I just feel that using leve charges would be the best way to pull that off without making it to much of a hassle on the players.